


The Climb

by Severina



Category: Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Community: tamingthemuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-15
Updated: 2012-06-15
Packaged: 2017-11-07 18:49:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/434243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Severina/pseuds/Severina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You never mind them," his ma tells him later when he's in bed, her palm cool on his cheek.  "You can do whatever you set out to do, Daryl, if you have a mind to it.  Ain't nobody gonna hold you back."</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Climb

**Author's Note:**

> Written for LJ's tamingthemuse community, for the prompt "hegemony" (aggression among small nations in an effort to achieve world domination.) 
> 
> Mostly pre-series Daryl, with a smidgen of Season One and post-series. 
> 
> Thanks to Snick for suggesting pre-series Daryl and making the lightbulb go off.
> 
> * * *

_Eight_

The magazine is ripped and tattered, some of the pages stained and sticky, but Daryl presses his nose closer anyway. His lips move as he struggles to piece together the meaning behind the long, unfamiliar words, his eyes darting regularly to the glossy photo of the summit, the men in their survival gear, the snow-bloated mountain range so wildly different from the swampy fields he wanders through with his brother, from the dirt yard littered with tractor parts.

"Hey! I tell ya you could look at my shit, you little thief?" 

The _National Geographic_ is torn from his grasp despite his best efforts to hold on. Merle always looms over him, it seems like Merle'll always be bigger and taller and stronger even though his mama says that someday he'll catch up, and now from his spot looking up from the floor his brother looks about ten feet tall. Daryl juts out his chin anyway. "Ain't yours," he says defiantly. "Sticker says it belongs to Mr. Cranston down the—"

When Merle's fist comes up, Daryl shuts his mouth and scoots across the threadbare rug, tucks himself at his mama's chair. "I'm gonna climb that mountain someday," he says from behind the safety of his ma's legs.

Merle laughs. "You hear that, Pa? Darylina here's gonna climb Mount Everest. Gonna be a goddamn _explorer_!"

Their Pa's laughter is just as humourless as Merle's, but he doesn't say a word. He only reaches for the whiskey bottle.

"You never mind them," his ma tells him later when he's in bed, her palm cool on his cheek. "You can do whatever you set out to do, Daryl, if you have a mind to it. Ain't nobody gonna hold you back."

Daryl closes his eyes so he doesn't have to see the fresh bruise on her cheek.

 

_Fifteen_

Daryl slouches at his desk, only half paying attention to the droning voice at the front of the classroom. The sunlight streams through the tall windows, making him squint, bleaching his tattered copy of _Romeo and Juliet_ to the colour of old bone. His leg jitters restlessly as he waits for the bell to ring, for the start of hunting season, Merle and his old man waiting for him right now, probably half in the bag but that don't matter to him none. He needs earth beneath his feet, not faded linoleum. Needs to smell the dark, rich odors of the woods, not chalk dust and stale sweat.

"… Mr. Dixon?"

Daryl shifts in his seat, suddenly aware of the silence in the room, of several dozen pairs of eyes swivelled in his direction, Miss Miller looking at him expectantly. He hunches his shoulders, tries to make himself invisible. "Yeah?"

She frowns when the other kids snicker. "I asked you a question. In what way is Friar Lawrence responsible for Romeo's death?"

Daryl looks at his hand, nicked and scarred from his recent practice work with the bow. He scowls at the desktop. "Shouldn't have sent Friar John with the letter," he mumbles his answer into the scarred wood. "You want somethin' done right, you do it yourself."

"Good," Miss Miller says. 

He sits up just a little straighter, shakes his shaggy hair out of his face and eyes her warily. She looks surprised – happy, but surprised – that he knew the answer, and all that does is confuse him. Anybody with more than six brain cells to rub together can follow this shit.

"Another example?" she continues.

Daryl opens his mouth to reply, Miss Miller looking at him expectantly, eyes bright. He can see the dust motes dancing in the air by her head, the sunlight turning her hair red-gold. His eye dart away, to the hostile stares of his classmates. And he pushes the answer down and away, because just like in the books they read, everybody's got a role to play. The lines are already written. He knows his part. She ought to know it, too.

"I don't fuckin' know," he snarls. "That was the only answer I read off your notes, you dumb bitch."

Daryl waits outside the office while the principle calls his house, then goes inside for the tongue-lashing and the week-long suspension.

When he's home, his pa won't bother with words.

 

_Twenty-One_

Daryl stands at the magazine rack, his hands clammy, the six pack of Bud that he decided to grab on the way out of the can tucked neatly at his booted feet.

He can only see the top banner of the skin mag over the edges of the others. _Hustler_ and _Penthouse_ and the like are front and center, leering girls with big tits displayed for all to see, but the _Playgirl_ is tucked at the back, mostly hidden. He knows there are other magazines, magazines that feature men, magazines that are more suited to his—

He looks down, fists his hands to still their trembling.

When he looks up, his eyes meet the gaze of the kid standing by the soda display. Blond hair, green eyes, clean crisp dockers. Some college kid, passing through on his way to some place better, 'cause any place is better than this hick burg. 

He looks away, shuffles his feet, tries not to notice the way his hand shakes when he reaches absently for one of the magazines on the shelf. And when he looks up again the kid is right there, close enough to touch, eyes roaming over Daryl's beat up jacket, the hair that he took scissors to himself just a couple of days ago 'cause it was getting too goddamn long, kept getting in his eyes when he sighted down the rifle.

When the kid licks his lips Daryl looks quickly away, but the kid just takes another step closer. Close enough that Daryl can smell him, sweat and cologne, something cool and sweet, something that reminds him of the basement pantry and its row of canned preserves, left over from before his ma died. 

Daryl's chest feels constricted, too tight. 

The kid reaches out to touch Daryl's hunting jacket. Smiles, perfect white teeth.

Daryl's breath catches in his throat.

"Yo, little brother!" Merle hollers from the now-open door. "You fall in the goddamn shitter?"

Daryl shoves out with both hands, catches the kid off guard and sends him stumbling back into the magazine rack. "I'm comin'!" he shouts back.

He leaves the beer behind when he stalks out to join Merle at the truck.

The kid's green eyes and blond hair feature in his dreams for weeks.

 

_Twenty-Three_

The pounding on the door wakes him, sends him stumbling to reach it before the ruckus wakes the neighbours. He flings back the lock, meets Merle's shit-eating grin with a blank stare. The math he does quickly in his head tells him that Merle should still be up in USP, but that don't change the fact that he's standing in the hallway, plain as day, the light from the stuttering bulb hanging from its frayed cord showing every new line in his face, his hair already going grey.

"Merle," he says flatly.

"Merle," his brother mocks. "That all you got to say to your big brother after all this time?"

He pushes his way inside before Daryl can answer, eyes sweeping the neat little apartment, the bookshelves tightly packed with second-hand novels, the quilt that used to belong to their ma thrown over the worn-out sofa. Too late Daryl remembers the textbooks strewn on the coffee table, makes an aborted move to block them that stops when Merle's eyes light up viciously and he leans down to pluck one off the table. The slips of paper that he'd painstakingly used to mark relevant passages flutter to the floor.

Merle studies the book for what seems like an eternity before his lips twist in an approximation of a smile. There's no humour in it. "What's this?" he asks.

"Nothin'."

" 'A History of Anthropological Theory'," he reads out. He wiggles his eyebrows. "Woo-eee. Don't sound like nothin' to me, little brother."

"Merle, you don't understand—"

"Oh, I don’t _understand_. What, that 'cause I'm some dumb redneck hillbilly, is that it?"

"That ain't what I meant—"

"You think you're smarter than ol' Merle?"

The apartment, two little rooms that always suited him just fine, seems to be closing in on him, the air hot and stifling, hard to breathe. "Merle, I told you, it ain't like that—"

"No? Well then, how's about you go and get dressed, little brother. You and me are gonna paint the town red tonight."

Daryl winces when Merle's big hands rip and tear, rip and tear.

"Go on, now," Merle says when he tosses the destroyed book aside. "You don't need this no more."

Daryl tries to remember the night school lessons, but when he closes his eyes all he can see are the prints left by Merle's muddy boots on the torn pages.

 

_Twenty-Four_

Daryl comes to believe that sometimes the mountain is just insurmountable.

 

_Thirty-Seven_

Daryl drags the bodies of the walkers to the burn pile, the bodies of the people the walkers killed to be laid out in a neat row. Swings his pickaxe, the sun beating down on his shoulders, sweat stinging his eyes. He tries not to think at all as the pickaxe splinters bone, crushes skulls. Because he can't say that any of these people were his friends, but they were people. Honest to goddamn good people, for the most part, the kind that donated to charity and helped out their neighbours and volunteered at the Red Cross. The kind that's better than him.

By the time he lets the pickaxe drop to the ground and swipes a forearm over his brow, it's already mid-day. 

More than twenty-four hours since they got to the roof and found Merle… gone.

Every second that he stays here, making sure that these people don't get up again, the trail goes colder. He should have been back on the road as soon as the sun came up.

He's not even sure when he made the conscious decision to stay. When he knew that he wasn't going back, was leaving Merle to his fate. Maybe when they reached the camp last night, him and Rick and T-Dog and Glenn, and he saw how woefully undermanned they really are, how every good shot literally makes a difference between life and death – or worse – for these people. Maybe when the last echo of the gunshots faded away and all that was left was Andrea's wailing for her sister. 

He just knows that he can't leave. 

He nods shortly to Glenn when the kid hands him a glass of water, already boiled at the camp, tepid and bland. After a day of back-breaking labour, it tastes like nirvana. He drains the glass while Glenn delivers another one to Morales, waits for the kid to return before slinging his pickaxe up to his shoulder and handing the empty container back.

"Thank you," Glenn says.

Daryl nods again and moves to turn away before the look in the kid's eyes makes him stop. His eyes dart between Glenn's earnest, open gaze to the row of bodies, to T-Dog and the old man coming up from between the tents, their arms laden with bed sheets. It don't take a genius to figure out that Glenn's thanking him for more than returning an empty glass.

Not burning all the bodies still don't feel right – it's don't feel _safe_ – not any more than leaving that dumbfuck mechanic that managed to up and get himself bit still alive up at the RV, with only a couple of the women keeping an eye on him. But he closes his mouth on his concerns, 'cause he just can't seem to argue when the damn kid is looking at him with those big brown eyes. And he's not sure he wants to think about that too closely, either.

He lifts his shoulders, manages a weak smile that probably looks more like a grimace. When Glenn's warm fingers touch his arm he doesn't flinch, 'cause he saw the movement coming, and when Glenn hangs on for just a little longer than seems strictly necessary he tries not to read too much into it. Or anything at all.

But that night, as potential routes to the CDC are discussed, Glenn sits close to him at the fire. They don't say a word, but Daryl knows that something has changed.

 

_Thirty-Nine_

It's still a hard-scrabble life, for all of them. Daryl spends his days maintaining the fortifications, coordinating watch shifts and patrols, sometimes leaving the relative safety of the camp to hunt the plentiful game in the surrounding woods. No matter what, the walkers keep coming.

But the log fires keep the cabin warm. The books salvaged on supply runs provide education and distraction. And there are many ways to spend the long nights.

Daryl laves his tongue down Glenn's spine, smiles against his skin when Glenn shudders beneath him. Loves to turn the kid inside out, make him come apart. 

Turns out the summit wasn't that far away after all.


End file.
